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Midnight
at Camp Victory, Baghdad: An orange half-moon
rises, its cold light catching half a dozen figures
waiting at the edge of the heliport. We are hunched
against the cold. It is within a degree or two of
freezing and none of us is used to these
temperatures. We stand shivering beneath silvery
clouds of our breath, stamping our feet.
When
I had called to confirm this flight, the Marine on
the phone told me that sometimes the helos arrive
early. "Best to be there at least an hour in
advance," he said. And so we all are, but the
little terminal building is closed. We wait
outside, watching the meteor shower and straining
our ears for the sound of rotors chopping at the
sky.
I
don't remember the name of this meteor shower, but
I remember just a year ago watching it from my
mother in-law's yard in Mississippi. A lifetime and
a world away, my brother-in-law and I leaned back
in lawn chairs, freezing, but enjoying the show of
blue-white streaks across the sky. Then, we had
cigars and whiskey.
Tonight,
unfortunately, I have neither of those nor his
company, so rather than run the risk of feeling
sorry for myself I talk to Lloyd and Gordon, two
journalists I've been bumping into since I got into
the country. They too, are waiting for a flight to
Ramadi.
So
we talk, shiver, and watch the stars. It's a
beautiful clear night. Suddenly two bright flashes
throw the palm trees on the edge of the field into
sharp relief, followed shortly after by two low,
rolling booms, which bounce off the buildings
behind us. We pause in our conversation.
"Outbound?"
asks Gordon. I doubt it. One of the others with us
mirrors my thoughts. "Car bombs, most likely," he
says. We all consider the likely targets - police
stations, election administration buildings - but
nobody speculates aloud. It seems poor form to do
so.
Not
long after this we hear the insistent hammering
that is the sound of approaching Chinooks. They
clear the horizon, two dark smudges blotting out
the stars. The noise increases and the smudges
resolve themselves into ungainly, double-rotored
monstrosities that flare at the edge of the runway,
stretching tentative landing gear toward the ground
like a swimmer testing the water.
They
land, and we strap our packs on, pick up our
things, and await a crew chief to tell us which to
board. The landing and boarding should take only a
couple minutes (These crews do not like sitting on
the ground any longer than that.) but when one of
the Chinooks shuts its engines down, I know
something is wrong.
We're
not going anywhere any time soon. I've been waiting
in Baghdad for 2 weeks to catch a flight to Ramadi.
Something, it seems, does not want me to get
there.
Sure
enough, we get word that one of the birds is
broken. No way of knowing yet if it can be fixed
tonight. "Sit tight," we're told.
It's
too cold to sit, but we wait. At first the senior
pilot tells us we'll know in "about 20 minutes"
whether we can fly tonight. But 20 minutes pass
with no word. After several 20 minute increments, I
begin to wonder if I should just try to get on a
different flight, but it's taken so long to get
scheduled on this one that I can't give up.
After
4 hours in the cold, many people have given up
though. Now there are few enough of us to fit in
one plane. The broken one is judged safe enough to
fly (although not safe enough to carry passengers)
so we rehoist our gear while the crews start the
engines.
The
first helo swings its rotors in slow circles; a
loud whine increasing in pitch as the blades pick
up speed. Now the blades are at full speed, and the
rotors of the other Chinook bounce and wave in the
prop wash. In the dim green glow of its bubble
cockpit I see the flight crew pushing buttons and
throwing switches. Soon the high-pitched whine
issues from this plane as well, and the blades
begin to revolve. The crew chief of the first plane
blinks his flashlight at us, and we run to board
through the ramp in the back.
It's
awkward going. I have to stoop to get inside, but
my flak vest doesn't let my body bend. My ruck sack
pulls me backward and my helmet is in danger of
slipping forward over my eyes.
Somehow
I get aboard. We sit on fabric and metal benches
that fold down from the side of the plane. Clearly
they are designed to be occupied by equipment-laden
Marines, because even with my pack flush against
the wall, I have just the right depth of bench on
which to sit. As we prepare to take off, the crew
chief shouts at me but I can't understand a word
he's saying. Finally I figure it out. They can't
get me to Ramadi. Instead, we're going to Al
Taqadam.
As
cold as it was waiting for the planes to arrive,
once we launch it is much worse. We fly with the
ramp down, so the back of the helicopter is wide
open. The frigid wind enters through the waist
gunners' widows and blasts through the plane,
howling out the ramp. I pull the collar of my
jacket up as high as it will go and retract my neck
like a tortoise.
Even
so, the wind knifes right through me.
Al
Taqadam is a sprawling airbase in the desert west
of Baghdad. We land at its remotest corner in pitch
balck. I'm stiff with cold and I have a kink in my
neck. The crew chief yells at us to grab our gear
and hit the ramp. He wants us off the plane so they
can get back to their base immediately. None of my
joints seems to be in working order, but I manage
to deplane without tripping and killing myself. The
birds depart with a roar, sandblasting us, bringing
tears to our eyes and stealing our breath.
Vaguely,
I see the humped shape of a hangar in the distance,
blotting out the brilliant stars. We shuffle in
that direction, and halfway there, are rewarded
when someone opens a door in the front, spilling
light across the tarmac at us. It is mercifully
warm inside. There is very little in the hangar; a
television stands in a console, surrounded by
concertina wire (They mean it when they say don't
touch the TV.) and a counter stands on the other
side. I head for the counter and ask for billeting
and for information on flights to
Ramadi.
For
billeting, I'm directed out the back of the hangar
and down a sand dune. From there I'm supposed to
follow a dirt road I can't see, and after about
half a mile, find the tent city.
Somewhere
in the group of about 20 tents I'll find the one
belonging to the duty NCO, who will tell me where
to unroll my sleeping bag. As for my flight - I
must return to the counter after 0800 (in just 4
hours) and make my request then. "It usually takes
about a week to get out of here," I'm told. As I'm
leaving the Marine behind the counter asks me, "Do
you have a flashlight sir?" I nod. "Good, because
it's rough going out there. Just don't use it too
much, because we've had sniper troubles
lately."
Walking
to the tent city probably took me twice as long as
it might have, but I gladly exchanged speed for
increased life expectancy, and I left my flashlight
in my pocket. I was cold, tired, and my ruck sack
was forcing my gunbelt to dig a small hole in my
hip, but I was happy. I challenge anyone to stand
under the sky I stood under and not be.
Venus
gleamed brilliantly. Uncountable numbers of stars
stretched from horizon to horizon, and the powdery
sand at my feet looked like snow as it reflected
their light. Even if I get stuck here a while, I
think to myself, this will have been worth
it.
I
find the duty NCO tent, wake her, and receive a
tent assignment. Transient lodging is a large tent
occupied by about 20 other men, judging by the
snoring I hear. It's cave-dark inside. I use my
flashlight to find an empty cot without tripping
over anyone. I dig out my sleeping bag and unroll
it and, despite being haunted by the thought that I
will wake up needing to pee but having no idea
where the latrine is, I am almost immediately
asleep.
In
3 hours I'm at the hangar again, trying to get a
flight. I learn there are two heading to Ramadi
this night. I have a pretty good chance of being on
one of them. I borrow a phone and call the people
who are awaiting me. We're talking on an unsecure
line, so I can't tell them what time my flight
departs, or what time it should arrive, but at
least they know where I am, and that I have a
chance of getting there that night.
With
that out of the way, and with a day ahead of me, I
decide to do some exploring. I stop at my tent for
my camera first, and I meet the guy who's in the
cot next to mine. He's a journalist for a French
news wire service. Seeing me enter the tent, he
guesses that I've come from the showers. "Ah," he
says, "The hot showER ees a wonnerful luxurY ees
eet not?" I suppress the urge to tell him that if
he and his countrymen considered showering more of
a necessity and less of a luxury, we might get
along better.
I
just smile and nod instead. He interprets this
(with typical French sagacity) as my being open to
conversation, so he asks me where I'm from and what
I do. I evade the questions without (I hope)
seeming too. It does not always seem prudent to
identify myself as an intelligence officer. I
really don't want to be rude (It must be that the
sight of the stars the night before has me more
kindly disposed than normal, and besides, my
objections to the French, while numerous, are
concerned more with the corporate than the
individual) so I make polite conversation for a
while.
I
remark that I haven't seen French journalists
in-country before. "Is there much interest in the
war back in France?" I ask him. He assures me that
there is. "What is the nature of the interest," I
wonder. "Is it antagonistic?" He assures me it is
not, although he allows that not long ago it might
have been.
"Now,"
he tells me, "It is more of the nature of 'we told
you so.'" He says that the French derive some
satisfaction from seeing that our task here is more
difficult than we expected. He says (and seems
himself to agree with the assertion) that the
French see the difficulty in what we are
undertaking as justification for not trying it
themselves.
I
don't let on how much I despise his line of
reasoning. Nor do I mention that our job would have
been considerably easier had his countrymen not
been selling Saddam weapons and telling him how to
use them against us. Instead, I offer him my hand
and wish him "bon chance."
I
head to the edge of the tent city. I'm walking on
fine, powdery sand that in direct sunlight is
almost as white as snow. My boots leave the kind of
prints you see pictures of, taken on the moon. Just
outside the earthen revetment that surrounds the
tents sits a dilapidated MiG-29. This was one of
Saddam's newest, most sophisticated, and lethal
aircraft.
Now
it is axle deep in the sand, tail in the dirt, nose
pointing skyward. The engine intakes are full of
sand. As I approach, I see that nearly every bit of
it that can be reached from the ground (There is a
sign next to it saying that climbing on the jet is
forbidden.) has been written on in black magic
marker. A few people have taken the opportunity to
tell the world what they think of Mr. Hussein, but
by far, the majority of the messages are those that
men have written to the women they love.
"Lexie,
Daddy loves you," and "Randy loves Paula 4ever,"
are typical of the notes I see. It seems
incongruous, but it makes sense to me. No matter
what I'm doing here, my thoughts are never far from
my wife, and everything I see, I wish she could see
with me.
I'll
write again soon.
Steven
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